21st Century Breakdown
by Masked Doll Victoria
Summary: OC Fic. At the end of the 21st century, a young girl with a mysterious power finds herself embroiled in a plot that may bring about the end of the world as we know it.
1. Prologue: Limelight

Prologue

"_All the world's indeed a stage  
And we are merely players  
Performers and portrayers  
Each another__'__s audience  
Outside the gilded cage_"

~Rush, "Limelight"

At the edge of the world, where civilization is but a distant memory and the seas are as blue as they were in the days of old, it is said that there is an island where all the laws of nature, indeed creation itself, are subject to the whims of a single figure. A place where each and every creature is studied, and declared fit to live by a potential it will never see in its life time. It is this place, where no less then perfection is expected of every living being, that a single girl, no older the clothes upon her back, acts as god, deeming who was fit to live, and who to die.

And so life went on this little island for years, the strong given the right to live, and the weak culled for a crime they would never understand. And the purpose of it all? The creation of a world of perfection, where all life brimmed with the vigor of a bloodline stronger then steel, and that was carefully guided by a single, pale hand. Indeed this island was but dress rehearsal for something far greater, for the girl's power, the ability to judge the destiny of all things, grew stronger by the day.

And soon, the verdant haven she had chosen to test her theories would serve as an example for the rest of the world. The strong would no longer rule over the weak, rather there would be no weakness. Not in her perfect world. The strong live, the weak die. For this is the only objective truth in all the world, the girl often though, and any who disagreed, they were weak, for hers was the only way.

"Soon..." The girl spoke aloud on a particular day in the fall of a year she had long ago lost track of as she focused quietly, taking in her mind's eye the destiny of every living thing on her tiny sea-locked home.

A few feet from her a swarm of ants chewed apart a large beetle. This brought a smile to the girl's face, the ants would someday give birth to a creature of immense power and authority. Though it would be millions of years in the future, it was now, in the present, that the seeds must be sown to a create such a world. Meanwhile, a flock of gulls flew overhead, nearly effortlessly riding the cool sea breezes that swept across the island in the early afternoon. They to would provide useful tool, for in a hundred thousand years their line would give rise to an entirely new being that could rule over the island as humans did the mainland.

And so she went on and on for all times, assessing the worth of every creature in her dominion with her strange power, leaving those who's potential glowed like the sun to their own devices, and the rest? She would rise from her trance, and for hours on end, personally destroy any who committed the sin of being a genetic dead end, those who, in time, would lead to nothing of worth. Natural order carried out in days instead of millennia, all in the name of the creation of a singular vision of the world. Her vision...it was the only true way.

Or so she thought. One day, in the clear of a cloudless morning, a visitor arrived on a boat of wood and steel. A man of great authority and stature, word of the unnatural plotting that had been inflicted upon the little island had reached his ears weeks ago and by the will of many upon the mainland, it was decided such a thing must come to an end before the horror of the girl's judgment was inflicted upon any more poor souls.

Approaching the young girl, who was still deep in meditation upon the fates of the islands inhabitant's, the older man issued a powerful and bellowing ultimatum.

"Cease this vile plot at once!" He spoke from the deepest part of his soul. "Or I will be forced to stop you."

Despite her trance, the girl merely smirked at the threat, for she could see the strength of the man's soul. In a thousand years his bloodline would come to an abrupt end as predisposition to heart disease finally claimed the last of his decedents. In other words...he was weak.

"I only seek a perfect world." She nearly sang. "Is that really so wrong?"

The man gave the girl a nasty look, she was just as delusional as the stories had said. There was no reasoning with someone like this.

Breathing carefully, the man called upon his own strange power, summoning to his side a stone giant of great power who carried in one hand an even greater blade. With a second command, the giant reared back, roaring as it did like a great beast, and brought its blade down upon the head of the girl, who still smiled and made no effort to defend herself, so large was her ego.

"You possess an interesting power. But it will do you no good, for interfering with my truth, you will die." The girl sang with a smile as the blade cut through the air at such a speed that it whistled like a reed on a windy spring day. She was sure she would survive the assault, she always had. No matter how strong, how fast, how intense, all those who had come for her in the past could not so much as touch her glorious visage, let alone cut it. He would fail, she thought, and would suffer the same fate as the half-eaten beetle at her feet.

As the giant's blade finally fell upon the girl's still smiling face, a great light erupted from her skull, brighter then the sun at noon and twice as intense, burning her very soul. And, after a moment that seemed to stretch into eternity, what had been one, was now two...

Or so the legend goes.


	2. The Jojo of Sagewood

"Now as you can see." An older man in a brown jacket, dress shirt, and matching slacks tapped away with an index finger at the holographic board the front of a class room at least seventy years older then the technology within it. "As we come to the end of the twenty-first century we must reflect on how far the humanity has come as a whole in the past 90 years. We've experienced war, drought, and famine far worse then any seen in the past five hundred and yet we still persist and thrive. Utilizing new technologies and philosophies developed by our best and brightest to overcome anything that was thrown our way. This alone is a testament to our ability as a species to evolve and..."

Before the graying gentleman could finish his lecture**,** a loud crunching filled the air from the behind the his back, an echoing and grating noise that filled the air and drowned out both vocalization and thought.

"Joanna Jordan." The old man said sternly as he turned around dramatically to face the class of bored students behind him. "How many times must I tell you that pencils are not food!?"

Though his tirade flooded across the class like a wave upon the sea, the teacher's anger was meant for one poor soul in particular, a strange, gray-skinned girl with pointed teeth like those of a shark sitting in the front row and, just as her teacher had admonished so loudly, munching on a small pile of number two pencils.

"What's yer fuckin' point?" The shark-toothed girl said with a roll of her eyes as she put another pencil in her mouth. "You just go back to teachin that history and we'll all be A-OK, right teach?"

"That is beside the point, you are disturbing the rest of the classes ability to learn with your incessant chewing. And it isn't just pencils, in the last week you've managed to make a habit of chewing on so many different things that I can't even begin to imagine what your dental records must look like! And this not even taking into the time that you somehow manage to devour half of the principle's desk."

Joanna laughed, that had been a hell of an afternoon. "Yeah, that was pretty damn funny."

The old man's face began to swell a deep red, like a volcano on the verge of eruption. He had dealt with problem children for over five decades now. Delinquents, ruffians, and other unsavory types who had tried with all their might to get on his bad side... and had failed. No matter how vile a child may be, they could never break his spirit and pride as a teacher. Or at least none had until he had met Joanna Jordan at the beginning of this past school year.

At nearly five feet eight inches tall, she was an imposing sight even without the razor sharp teeth and intense eyes with bright red irises that made Joanna resemble more a bipedal shark creature then a normal human. This, combined with her tendency to dress in mismatched combination of a long black coat, T-shirt with the word "JO" emblazoned on the front, and both a pair of pants and a skirt, had long made Joanna the talk of Sagewood Community Highschool, and the bane of nearly every teacher unlucky enough to cross her path.

"Miss Jordan, the classroom is no place for a meal. That goes the same for a sandwich as it does that box of pencils you've insisted on chewing on for the last hour."

"So? I get nervous havin to sit through your boring ass speeches every day. So munchin on these pencils helps me to relax. You want me to be able to relax, right teach?"

Joanna gave her teacher a look and small grin that read as both "your way out of your league" and "if you keep this up I'll eat this entire box just to spite you."

The old man was not amused, his entire lecture, which he had spent several hours the previous night preparing, had been thrown off the rails by a single girl with a bad attitude and an unhealthy appetite for pencil lead.

There was no long a need for words, they had both been through this dance before. The old man would point at the door and Joanna would leave the classroom with a smile on her face and, if she was feeling particularly salty about the day's exchange, one or both of her middle fingers held aloft in strict defiance of the laws of common decency.

"You tryin to say that I should get the hell out of here? Sounds like a great idea!" Kneeling for a moment Joanna collected her things, including the errant pencil box that now lay half empty on her desk, and ran out the door as fast as she could. Hoping that no one would catch on the way out of the building.

"Enjoy the rest of the lesson, nerds!" Joanna yelled as she sped out of the school building.

Craning her head skyward, Joanna had to shield her eyes just to avoid being blinded by sun shone brilliantly overhead a clear and cloudless blue sky. In other words, it was yet another fine day in the town of Sagewood. A place where nature met the century's end with a combination of careful planning and controlled conservation.

Nestled in an expansive grove on the eastern coast of the United States, Sagewood was built at the beginning of the century as a sign of things to come, a statement by its utopian-minded founders that mankind could live alongside nature, rather then against it. As such, the entirety of the town was constructed with this ideology in mind. Buildings were built around trees, parks placed as far as the eye could see, and pure blue lakes and rivers left to flow and waver as nature saw fit.

A fine place to make a life, or even build a family, the town had been voted one as one of the best small towns in the country over the last several decades, and it just so happens to be the place where Joanna was born. A girl with a big personality in a small town, what could possible go wrong?

Another bright and sunny day it may have been, Joanna yet sighed under the clear skies above her. "What the hell am I going to do now?" She moaned.

Truth be told, there isn't much to do in Sagewood at this time of day, when all of the town's children were still at work, adults at work, and netcasts littered with infomercials and programming meant for the small in both body and mind.

It would be another few hours until class was dismissed, and her friends released from the prison of pencils and desks. Till then, Joanna was alone. She thought as the strolled down the street, hands firmly lodged in the pockets of her custom jeans.

She could go home. But that would mean having to face her mother, Joan. There was few people in all the world that Joanna was afraid of, but her mother was one of them. Even the thought of having confront her mother with the fact that she had been kicked out of class again brought a shiver to the shark-toothed girl's skin. In her youth, Joan had been a spitfire of a girl who had taken after her similarly reckless and tough grandmother and didn't really end her trail of destruction until she had met her future husband, James Jordan, in university. And when angry, it seemed that same fire once more ignited in the pit of her stomach, leading much wailing and gnashing of teeth on a scale that few could even imagine a woman in her mid-40s being capable of.

Joanna shuddered once more at the mere thought. Going home was clearly out of the question. But what now? No place of note was open, and Sagewood was small enough town that being seen by any adult would eventually come back to her mother. Her mother knew everyone, it seemed.

"ARGH!" Joanna yelled, her hands gripped firmly to the sides of her head. "This sucks!"

Then a thought appeared in her mind, like a bolt from the blue. What did people do when they had nothing better to do but nowhere to go to? The answer was obvious, Joanna thought she she rummaged through the deep pockets of her long coat. "My phone!" She nearly shouted, drawing strange looks from several random people on the street around her.

"Why the fuck didn't I think of this before?"

When one was bored, with nothing to do, and without enough will to make something yourself, there was no better amusement then tapping away at a phone for hours on end. Even eighty years from now, social media still grips the public conscience, extending its ever present grip upon the mind's of the people who desire to know what their friends ate for lunch for the day.

"OK, update: Got kicked out of class again. Sitting on the sidewalk texting. Life is good. LOL."

A comment came several seconds later, much to Joanna's suprise. "Oh," She mumbled as she checked her phone's holographic display. "It's Leeanna."

"You really got yourself kicked out again!? Bad JoJo!" The comment was followed up by an icon of a shark crying. Leeanna always insisted on using the shark emotes when speaking to Joanna online, much to the older girl's amusement.

"Hey! The teacher was being an ass to me again for eating those pencils you gave me. What was I supposed to do?" Joanna commented in return using a voice to text function.

"Apologize and stop eating pencils?"

"Argh, you know I get nervous when I'm forced to sit in one place for to long."

"If I promise to buy you some more pencils will you stop arguing with the teacher when he tells you to stop eating them?"

A tempting offer, and it was becoming increasingly evident that there was little fun about being kicked out of class for the day.

"You win. I won't piss off that fat old man again no matter how rude he is to me."

"Good. I'll buy you a new box from the school store after class. Why don't we meet at the Arcade and hang out for the afternoon?"

Leeanna Geddy was the among Sage Wood Community High School's best and brightest, an intelligent, bookwormish girl who most thought would go on to change the world. For some reason, she was also Joanna's best friend.

"Yeah, sounds good. I'll see you then." Joanna sighed as she spoke to the phone, wondering how many time she had promised Leeanna she'd stop being so combative. The count had to be at least ten by now, but she just couldn't resist the allure of putting some pompous old man in their place! It was one of life's simple pleasures, like eating pencils, or punching jerks in the face. But still, she did promise. And Joanna was a shark/girl/thing of her word.

Located a few blocks from downtown, The Arcade was a local theme restaurant that had opened in Sagewood the year before. Combining reasonable dining with a retro game aesthetic, it had recently become popular with the town's youth, who were rather amused to see the kind of games that their parents and grandparents had enjoyed when they were young.

"It figures that she'd want to meet up there." Joanna mused as she put away her phone and prepared to make her way downtown. "Girl's a giant nerd...but she's one of the good ones. I mean she does put up with all my shit.

It was about a fifteen minute walk from the school to the Arcade, a walk past paths lined with trees, a bubbling brook, and a dozen homes. It all reminded Joanna just how boring a town Sagewood was, nothing ever happened here. Nothing. She reminded herself.

Everyday was the same. Go to school. Eat lunch. Hang out with Leanna. Go home. Eat again. Argue with dad about biology. Then go to bed. Ever freaking day! It was enough to make a girl want to tear every last hair from her head.

When she graduated, Joanna often swore, she'd get the hell out of this town and make a name for herself doing something exciting! Maybe she'd become a hero, using her odd ability to bite through nearly anything to fight evil wherever It lurked or, more likely, she'd just move to the city where there was more to do on the weekend then hanging around a silly theme restaurant.

"Yeah." Joanna laughed. "That would probably be enough."

After walking for about fifteen minutes, Joanna found herself in front of the Arcade. It's facade had been made up to resemble the old game tradeshows that had dominated the industry in the earlier portion of the century, but had since been fazed out in favor of digital gatherings, and currently bore the likeness of a yellow, spherical thing who's name Joanna couldn't quite place.

"Now I've just got to wait, I guess."

Joanna sat down on a bench outside the restaurant and took out her phone again. It would be sometime until Leeanna arrived, and that screen wasn't going to tap itself.

When the school bell struck three, there was little that could keep the students of Sagewood Community High School from burst forth into the street, dreams of dinner and more bouncing to and fro in their young minds. The same, however, could not be said of Leanna Geddy, who could currently be found exchanging a few dollars for a box of over 100 pencils that would most likely end up gnashed between her best friend's frighteningly sharp teeth.

"That will be three dollars, Ms. Geddy." The elderly shopkeeper stated plainly.

"Of course." Leeanna spoke as she placed her money on the shop's front desk.

"You sure do buy a lot of these pencils. It warms my heart to see, most kids your age can't even stay awake in class, let alone take notes for themselves. I tell you, back in my day we paid attention in class and respected our instructors, not like some of the brats we've got here today. I mean, have you ever seen that strange girl with the sharp teeth running around? She must get herself kicked out of class at least once a week! It's deplorable if you ask me."

"_You've got quite the reputation, don't you Joanna?_" Leeanna thought to herself.

The old woman could have rambled for longer. But a simple nod and exchange of money cut short a lecture that could have easily lasted for several hours if allowed to.

"Have a good day!" The shopkeeper added as Leeanna left the store and finally made her way outside.

"You to." Leeanna added several second to late as the store's automatic doors shut behind her with a loud thud.

Leeanna was a girl who's life had been spent with her nose firm nestled between the pages of many, many thick books. Intelligent, but a bit socially awkward, she was a girl that many aspired to be like, but few actually wanted to spend time with. Everything about her was just a bit off, from her oversized glasses, to the ill-fitting cardigan wrapped around her tiny frame, even her clothing seemed to be a bit awkward.

How Sage's Wood's most notable intellectual under twenty somehow became friends with the town's most notable delinquent was quite the story. One that Leeanna recalled fondly now and again, and that involved the shark-tooth girl beating the living hell out of a group of bullies who had been making fun of her for days on end.

"Oh, Joanna."

Since that day, Joanna and Leeanna had been the best of friends. Though their interests rarely intersected, the pair shared a nearly mystical bond that ensured they always had something to talk about. Joanna would often drag out stories of various inedible things she had managed to eat or people she had punched, while the shark-girl then sat in awe of her best friends expansive knowledge of evolutionary biology and quantum physics.

A case of intellectual give and take, it was a relationship on complimenting what the other lacked, and Leeanna would not have it any other way.

With the box of pencils in a bag in her left hand, Leeanna was off. Walking from the school to the gaudy restaurant she had chosen for the afternoon's hangout session would take a bit, fifteen minutes by her well informed reckoning, but that was what she enjoyed about Sagewood. It was a simple, unpretentious town where things moved slowly and you could take time to stop and smell the roses, so to speak, without worrying about the world leaving you behind.

Humming a song she couldn't remember the lyrics to, Joanna walked at a moderate pace towards the Arcade. Sometimes looking at the clear sky above and smiling or bending over to pick up a particularly interesting looking rock, it seemed to the bespectacled girl that there could be no more perfect a day then this one. The weather was good, class had gone swimmingly, and she was about to spend the afternoon playing retro games over cheap food. Life was good!

But still, as she finally entered the town's modest downtown of small businesses and storefronts, a strange feeling came over Leeanna, like she was being watched with ill intent by someone from afar.

"That can't be right." Leeanna mused to herself. "Must all be in my head."

She did become paranoid on occasion that someone was after her, a bad habit developed after being bullied nearly daily from the ages of 13-15. But that was mostly stupid kids who felt that they needed to harass the strange looking smart girl to justify their own existence, and not something she would encounter on a sunny afternoon in downtown.

"Shake it off Leeanna, you know your no fun when your all paranoid like this!" She shook her head several times, tossing the bad thoughts out and replacing them with positive images of her and Joanna playing games older then either of their dads.

She continued on, past a hotel of some renown where visiting politicians, celebrities, and other well-to-do people often stayed when visiting Sagewood, which had become something of a vacation spot for the upperclass after being named one of the best small towns in America a decade before. It was just in front of that very establishment that the paranoia once more gripped her mind in an almost oppressive manner. Someone was watching her, they just had to be!

And she'd be right, for from the buildings roof, someone, dressed from head to toe in black and with their face hidden behind an odd looking mask, gazed at the small girl a hundred feet below through the scope of a long-barrel rifle modified to fire tranquilizer darts, the type used by those who wished to apprehend a target, rather then kill them.

It was actually several minutes ago, long before Leeanna had ever stepped foot in downtown, that she had been marked by the masked woman's sight. With eye-sight like that of a hawk, she had almost instantly identified Leeanna as her target, leaving it only a matter of time before one of her tranquilizer darts was lodged firmly in the young girl's back. But why should Leeanna ever suspected such a thing? After all, nothing important ever happened in Sagewood.

Paralyzed by fear, Leeanna could not move once she finally took notice of the black-clad woman. It was all over, she thought.

And that was the cue, the second her target felt fear, that was one the sniper would strike. At that moment, all hope leaves the body and mind, resigning them to their awful fate. Yes, that was always the best moment to fire, that split second when all hope was lost and escape seemed impossible. And she did, pulling the trigger of her rifle and sending with incredible speed and accuracy a dart that would soon find home in Leeanna's body.

Just as the sniper had predicted, and set up ever so perfectly, there was no time for Leeanna to run, no time for her hide, her fate had been sealed. A moment later the dart, moving at a speed at which was nearly invisible to the naked eye, landed just to the left of her chest. A moment later, a look of fear and exasperation on her face, she fell to the ground, her tiny frame bouncing a bit as she landed face first on the grassy lawn in front of the hotel.

The woman on the roof smiled beneath the cloak of her black mask, the glasses-girl had been an easy mark. Easier then any she had ever been tasked with capturing in the past, in fact.

"Job's only half done." She muttered to herself. "Ah well, better pick up the bait before anyone notices."

Casting her pitch-black rifle aside, it soon dissipated into a cloud of ashen smoke that scattered to the winds, never to be seen by man or god ever again.

This was her "ability." The thing that, according to her mysterious employer, set the sniper apart from the rest of humanity. And while the black-clad woman didn't know about that, it certainly did make her job easier.

An hour had passed as Joanna sat in front of the Arcade, ever waiting for her best friend to appear with a box of pencils in one hand and a smile on her face.

"Where the fuck are you, Leeanna?" She wondered quite loudly to herself.

Her friend was never this late, certianly on occasion she would take far to much time to admire nature and arrive fifteen minutes late with a gift of freshly picked flowers and interesting looking rocks. But Leeanna would never ever, not in a million years, leave her best friend waiting for without saying she was going to be late first.

"RURURURURURU" Joanna's phone began to ring loudly and violently.

"What now?" She wondered. "Maybe it's Leanna."

It usually was, Joanna didn't have that many friends. Most people at school were afraid of her or at least to intimidated to strike up a conversation.

It was Leeanna, but the accompanying photo, which depicted the bespectacled-girl tied to a chair, was enough to set off a million alarms in Joanna's mind.

"RURUURURURU" Joanna's phone rang again. This time alerting her that she had a text message.

"Yo, shark-girl. I've got your friend. And if you ever want to see her again, you'll come alone to the hotel downtown tonight at 10 PM or so. I'll be the one in black with the Mateba 2006M. You know the gun from Ghost in the Shell. Yeah, old movie, I know. But it's really good! I swear! Your stupid little friend didn't get the reference. She just kept going on about how far it was before her time. I swear, kids these days don't appreciate classic cinema, or firearms. Anything that came out more then five years ago is to "old" or "retro" now. I swear...any way. Hotel. 10PM. Be there."

"Damn it!" Joanna yelled, shaking her phone in rage. "Why the hell would anyone want to kidnap Leeanna, she ain't rich or famous or anything?"

Didn't matter though. Someone was messing with her best friend. She had to do something. But what?

"Can't go to mom and dad with this one. They'll just get the cops involved." Joanna sighed. "Guess I'll have to do this myself."

At 10PM she would meet the kidnapper just like she had asked. It would be dangerous, maybe even deadly. But her "ability" would get her through this. After all, there was nothing she couldn't bite through.


	3. 21 Guns

Joanna Jordan liked to think of herself as an ordinary girl.

Well, apart from the fact that she was part-shark and could eat just about anything, at least.

Other than _that_, she led a fairly normal life. Normal household, normal school, and normal friends.

That is, at least, until she found her best friend kidnapped and a self-proclaimed mercenary identifying herself as the culprit. As far as she thought, those kinds of developments only happened in books and movies and stuff. Wasn't there that one old film where the guy's daughter gets taken, or something? It didn't matter, she supposed.

What did matter was finding Leeanna Geddy and kicking the ass of the one responsible. No one messed with Joanna Jordan's friends and got away with it. Because an action against her friends was an action against Joanna herself—and that kind of crap wouldn't go unpunished.

Not as long as Joanna had anything to say about it.

The night was cold and dark. Well, that second bit was to be expected, Joanna thought. It _was_ nighttime, after all, and the streetlights didn't do much for visibility—or for the fact that some crazy bitch with a gun was waiting to blow her brains out. Even Joanna's enhanced shark senses couldn't do anything to calm her nerves. Sure, she had a good deal of faith in her own abilities, but apart from the assorted punks she'd beaten up at school, she hadn't much in the way of real fight experience, so...

Of course, it wasn't long before Joanna noticed where she was, and a telltale click of a gun's hammer being cocked snapped her to her senses.

"Well, well..." spoke a voice from the darkness. "So good of you to actually show up. Y'see, I was starting to worry I'd have to _do_ something to my little guest."

"Where the fuck is Leeanna?!" snapped Joanna, as the source of the voice made herself known by stepping into the illuminating glow of a streetlight in front of the hotel.

"Oh, is that her name?" retorted the woman before her, brandishing her handgun. "Pretty name. Almost as pretty as the girl herself. I mean, I've got nothing against her, and I certainly wouldn't want to do anything to hurt that pretty little face... but I've got my orders, you see, and my employer needs me to bring you to her—and I'll do whatever's necessary to accomplish that goal and earn my pay."

"Your pay, huh?" spat Joanna. "Well, I'm here now... so let Leeanna go!"

"No can do, I'm afraid," came the gun-toting woman's response. "I need her as a bargaining chip, you see. Otherwise, you might renege on our deal."

Joanna clenched her fists.

"There was never a 'deal,' you bitch."

At these words, the woman before her drew back.

"Whoa, whoa! Let's go easy on the language and the personal attacks, now! Otherwise, this baby in my hand might start to have a mind of its own... by the way, this is the one I mentioned to you before. Mateba 2006m. Beautiful, isn't it? 40.6 ounces, six-inch barrel, six-round capacity, fires .38 special or .357 magnum ammo. It's an exact twin to the one used in Ghost in the Shell by that one guy. Togusa? Yeah, that's his name. He uses it in the original film as well as in the sequel and in the Stand Alone Complex anime. Isn't it just spectacula—"

The woman did not get a chance to finish her thoughts, as, during her rant, Joanna had closed the distance, and before the woman could react Joanna had punched her in the gut, causing her to double over and drop the gun as Joanna kicked it away into the darkness.

"Now, now," coughed the woman, "let's not get hasty. I was right in the middle of my explanation... and, God help me, if you've put a single scratch on her, I'll have your hide..."

The woman straightened herself out and took a low stance, her right hand at her side as if to draw an invisible revolver from a side holster.

"And now I've gotta do my job with no gun! Look at the situation you've forced me into!"

Joanna smirked. "Seems pretty favorable for me, you bitch." The shark-like girl dropped into a low stance of her own, her hands raised, prepared to strike. "By the way... you never told me your name. I should at least know who I'm about to beat to a pulp, wouldn't you say?"

The woman smiled. "Fair enough. The name's Alexis, Alexis Peart. Hard to say, isn't it? Most people see 'Peart' and think it's pronounced like "pear" plus a T, but it's really "peer" plus a T. But anyway... let's get down to business, shall we? My employer wants me to bring you in, and you clearly have no intention of coming quietly—"

In that instant, a spectacular thing happened.

A shimmering portal appeared near Alexis' right hand, a portal she immediately shoved her hand into and from which she withdrew another gun, this one made of gleaming steel and sporting no visible chamber.

_What? How—?!_

"—so I'm gonna have to rough you up a bit!"

With those words, Alexis pulled the trigger multiple times in quick succession, sending three bullets spiraling towards Joanna's position.

Were it anybody else, in the face of an expert like Alexis, this would certainly have spelled their death.

However, for someone like Joanna, whose senses were augmented by her shark-like sensory capabilities, dodging a bullet or two was hardly anything out of the ordinary.

The trajectories plain for Joanna to see, she wasted no time, not even a split second, in ducking to the side, the bullets passing just next to her head and impacting a building not far away.

"'Rough me up,' huh?" spoke Joanna, barely fazed by Alexis' attack. "That seems like a lot more than you trying to just rough me up."

Alexis gave a light chuckle. "You see... my employer is well aware that normal tactics won't work on you. Told me to fight you, if necessary, as though I mean to kill, because anything less and you'd probably be the one roughing up me."

"Oh, believe me," replied Joanna, readying herself for an attack. "I'm gonna be doing that anyway!"

With those words, Joanna dropped low to the ground, using her sudden downwards momentum to propel herself forward. Dodging another bullet from Alexis' gun, then another, Joanna wasted no time in getting up in Alexis' face and decking her with a well-placed punch to the shoulder, causing her to drop her gun—but another gun, much larger, with an imposing barrel, found itself in Alexis' other hand, pulled from another strange portal and pointed directly at Joanna's head once more.

"44 magnum!" shouted Alexis, as she took aim at Joanna. "Let's see you dodge this!"

But before she could pull the trigger, she found her finger's path obstructed by Joanna's own, who had jammed her finger between the trigger and the body of the gun, preventing Alexis from squeezing.

And before Alexis could react, Joanna's fist met cleanly with the older woman's gut once more, sending her sprawling.

"Alright... now let's have it. What the hell is that... that ability of yours? How are you doing that shit with your guns?!"

Alexis spat out blood as she shakily rose to her feet, a smirk still plastered across her face in spite of her predicament.

"What... can't you tell?" came Alexis' labored response. "It's the same kind of ability you have—a 'Stand!'"

"A... Stand?" replied Joanna. She'd had her shark traits ever since that one time... but to think it was an actual, quantifiable ability? And that there were others like her—

Joanna's thoughts were interrupted, coldly and cruelly, as the sound of a gunshot rang out—the source of the sound readily apparent, as Alexis once more held a gun in her free hand. Smoke drifted from its barrel as a shell clattered nearby and blood dripped onto the ground, blood that spurted forth from a hole now located in Joanna's leg.

And all of a sudden, the pain hit Joanna all at once as she dropped to one knee, her strength leaving her.

"What... you fucker... when did you...?"

"Behind my back," Alexis answered, looking not much better off than Joanna. "If I pulled the gun out from behind my back, you wouldn't have time to react before I fired it, especially if you couldn't see the end of the barrel."

"You... crafty bitch..." spat Joanna, as she attempted to rise to her feet, only to have the shooting pain from her leg wound bring her swiftly back to earth.

"Hey, now..." spoke Alexis, reaching into another portal and pulling out yet another gun, which she aimed directly at Joanna's neck. "What did I tell you about language? Not that it matters now, anyway. This baby's loaded with a tranq dart. You'll be coming with me, to meet my employer... and know that it was my '21 Guns' that brought you down!"

And in that instant, Alexis tightened her finger on the trigger—

—but Joanna had other plans.

As the gunshot rang out and smoke obscured Alexis' line of sight to Joanna's kneeling form, she had fully expected the girl to be on the ground, out like a light... but the sight that greeted her was far from what she expected.

As the smoke cleared, the sight that greeted Alexis was that of Joanna, still very much awake, with the needle of the tranquilizer dart clutched firmly between her pointed, serrated teeth.

Alexis was dumbfounded.

"What the—?! How did you...?!" was all Alexis could manage before Joanna crushed the dart in her mouth and delivered one more punch to Alexis' gut, dropping the woman to Joanna's level.

"It's easy, really," came Joanna's confident reply. "I know enough about guns to know that a tranquilizer dart isn't going to fly as fast as a real bullet. Since I knew where you had that thing pointed, and how long it was going to take you to pull that trigger, all I had to do was move my mouth into the dart's trajectory... and thanks to the number you did on my leg, falling was _real_ fuckin' easy. And now..."

Joanna gripped Alexis by the collar, snapping a few buttons on her shirt as she rose to her full height and pulled Alexis with her.

"...you're gonna tell me everything you know!"

Alexis swallowed. She wasn't getting out of this one.

"I-I don't—"

"TOO LATE!" Joanna certainly didn't feel like granting Alexis a reprieve, a sentiment that was echoed in her fist that came crashing into Alexis' face, with another blow following close behind, followed by another, and another, and another, the flurry of blows showering Alexis' body showing no signs of letting up.

"ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA—"

And as Joanna raised her fist for a final blow...

"ORAAAAH!"

...she brought it crashing directly into the center of Alexis' face, blood flying everywhere as the woman slumped to the ground, still conscious but damaged to hell and back by Joanna's vicious assault.

"Now..." Joanna continued, cracking her knuckles as she stared down at Alexis from above. "Feel like telling me anything about this mysterious 'employer' of yours?"

Alexis gulped, her vision obscured by her own swollen face.

"I..." she began. "I don't know anything about her. Her name, her age, everything's a mystery. I don't even know what she looks like... her face is always obscured by that hooded cloak she wears."

At these words, Joanna had a visible reaction.

"Did you say... she wore a hood!?" snapped Joanna, gripping Alexis' collar once more and lifting her up. "Tell me!"

Alexis coughed, still shaking from Joanna's earlier barrage. "Yeah, that's what I said... why? What's it matter to you?"

Joanna loosened her grip on Alexis' collar, letting the woman crumple once more to the ground.

"You wanna know why I care so much?" Joanna retorted. "I'll tell you why... that hooded bitch is why I'm like this in the first place!"

Upon hearing this, Alexis' expression underwent a noticeable change.

"You mean she...?"

"Back before I became like this," interjected Joanna, "I was just like any other girl my age... before that bitch up and stabbed me with a fucking arrow. Just walked up to me and stabbed me! Right in the neck! I thought I was gonna die! Of course, somehow, I survived, but when I woke up..."

"...you were a shark?"

"I guess when you put it that bluntly..." replied Joanna, not finishing her thought. "Anyway, how'd you get that... that '21 Guns' thing of yours? Did you get stabbed, too?"

Alexis merely laughed, or as close to a laugh as she could with her body broken as it was.

"Me? Nah... I awoke to this ability on my own. Pretty cool, too—I can call upon any gun I want from a handy-dandy portal, but only once per gun. Once I've used a particular gun, it vanishes, and I can't call on it again. There are some other... stipulations, but that's... about as much as you need to know."

"Whatever," came Joanna's reply. "Anyway, if you don't want me to bust you up even further... there's something you'll need to do for me."

"And that is...?" inquired Alexis, although she was pretty sure she already knew the answer.

"You're gonna lead me to that hooded bitch," responded Joanna, "and I'm gonna beat her up!"

Alexis smirked upon hearing this proclamation.

"Good luck," she muttered. "You think I have any idea where she is...?"

At this, Joanna smiled, a mischievous grin crossing her face.

"In that case... you're gonna stick with me until I find her!"

Alexis gave a weak smile, the last of her strength leaving her.

"I suppose... I don't have much of a choice... do I...?" was all she could say, as her body gave out and she collapsed once more to the ground, unconscious.

"That's the spirit," proclaimed Joanna, as she reached down to lift up Alexis' body, grabbing hold of one arm and draping it over her shoulder as she began to walk, noticeably hampered by the bullet hole in her leg.

First, she was gonna go find Leeanna and make sure she was safe. Next, though...

"Now... where's the nearest hospital...?"


End file.
